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Also - did anyone else see some irony in their choosing the term 'plop' for putting things down - as in "plopping something down" when the first thing they ask you to 'plop down' is a Sewage outlet? :)

Seriously, with the problems Diablo 3 has had, and the problems it seems likely Sim City is going to have, with an online only game, surely developers are going to stop this nonsense? Right? Guys?

Um... no? Really that's my most significant concern - how they manage the online component. Origin should be enough DRM (as demonstrated by Valve and Steam) for anyone, the additional stuff seems like it's going a bit too far. All I expect for it to be tolerable is for it to work offline. Doesn't look like that's going to happen.

The issue is that, as much bad press as its gotten, Diablo III sold absurdly well. I'm assuming that SimCity will also sell well, since the franchise is such a huge deal. It'll take a huge commercial flop to get developers to notice how ridiculous this system is.

Sure, Diablo 3 sold very well, but even now Blizzard is admitting their mistakes and promising fixes for the expansions, they even switched the project lead. Bioware stopped production of planned DA2 DLCs and went straight to DA3 promising more RP, bigger scale and less brown environments. Warfighter didn't sell as well as expected and got bad reviews and apparently the new COD had some innovation in it and most people buy it for multiplayer these days.

he companies know that the reason they are selling as much as they do is the brand loyalty and trust they've fostered over the years. The people who got burned by these games will be very apprehensive when it comes to buying the next one.

Even selling more DLC ( which is probably more profitable than the base game at average price ) depends on people liking the base game enough to spend more money on it.

Sure, the new Simcity will probably sell a lot, but a lot of people will still skip it for the DRM and the smaller city scale and that matters a lot when the genre isn't one that everyone is interested in. And they won't even have piracy to blame the lost sales on. And what happens if it pulls another Diablo 3 and its servers are empty after 2 months? Who are they going to sell all of their planned DLC to?

It's pretty clear that this SC has been built from the ground-up as an online game - I cannot see them surrendering and allowing any form of offline game - so no city saving/reloading or anything like that.

Trad. SC fans will wonder why their way of playing has been kicked-in-the-teeth but I think the answer is - you're not their intended market for this game.

This is being aimed at the people who've spent FORTUNES on The Sims and fancy something a bit 'larger scale' - I think someone decided that a lot of Sims players will have 'grown up and wanted something more detailed' - and I think they're probably wrong because most people buy The Sims so they can pretend to be famous and beautiful and loved and a princess/pop star or whatever and have NO interest in running a city.

Seems a shame in some ways but I suspect the online aspect won't bother the people they're primarily chasing at all - hell I just reinstalled SC4 and I'd forgotten how 'Sim'y it was, let alone the new one!!

The thing is, the online component of Diablo 3 was great. Now I'm completely pro-choice, and think that there should have been an offline option for those that wanted it, but the online system was so slick and it was incredibly easy to meet up with your friends. So I found it easyier to stomach the always online drm because it definitely improved the game, imo. Sim City though, I'm very doubtful how much the online aspect will add to the game. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

The thing is, the online component of Diablo 3 was great. Now I'm completely pro-choice, and think that there should have been an offline option for those that wanted it, but the online system was so slick and it was incredibly easy to meet up with your friends. So I found it easyier to stomach the always online drm because it definitely improved the game, imo. Sim City though, I'm very doubtful how much the online aspect will add to the game. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

I can play Saints Row 3 and Borderlands 2 entirely offline, and they both have seamless, integrated co-op modes.

There is no excuse.

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

The thing is, the online component of Diablo 3 was great. Now I'm completely pro-choice, and think that there should have been an offline option for those that wanted it, but the online system was so slick and it was incredibly easy to meet up with your friends. So I found it easyier to stomach the always online drm because it definitely improved the game, imo. Sim City though, I'm very doubtful how much the online aspect will add to the game. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

But did you ever have any desire to play it offline by yourself? Some people did.

This is being aimed at the people who've spent FORTUNES on The Sims and fancy something a bit 'larger scale'

I don't understand this point at all. SimCity has nothing to do with The Sims. Superficially sure, because it uses Simlish (yet all the signs for buildings are in real languages) and the populous are referred to as Sims. Otherwise it's a world away from that virtual doll neighbourhood. People play The Sims to start up their own little narratives that focuses on little computer people. SimCity is about maintaining a network of utilities and infrastructure to grow a city.

Is it different from the previous titles? Yes. But the core mechanic isn't that different, and has nothing to do with The Sims.

I can play Saints Row 3 and Borderlands 2 entirely offline, and they both have seamless, integrated co-op modes.

There is no excuse.

Yeh absolutely, I'm just saying that I can accept it more easily when there are clear benefits - fast connection with friends within seconds, no fannying about browsing game lists or connecting direct via ip. At the minute we don't even know that is the case with Sim City, or even how much strategy or depth multiplayer will add to the city building.

Originally Posted by Shooop

But did you ever have any desire to play it offline by yourself? Some people did.

I didn't. But I know alot of people did and there should have been an offline mode for those people. For me, I could see that the online system was very good, so I could swallow the fact it was online only. Yet Sim City is a franchise that has been 99% a single player experience, so I'm finding it much harder to accept the requirement to be always online, whereas the Diablo series had a strong multiplayer focus.

Has there been any indication that Sim City will later espouse a multiplayer focus - something akin to Cities XL perhaps? Collaborative city building could persuade me to tolerate always-on DRM so long as the forum bans and awful customer service was rectified.

Just to ask, what exactly is SimCity's online component? I know that the entire game seems to be stored "in the cloud" (or, at least, your city's status is), but is there any persistent multiplayer component to go with it? Will different players' cities be interacting in real time, much in the same way that your multiple cities could link together within the same region in SimCity 4? I haven't heard a lot of information on this front.

It's the regional economy stuff. Though you can have a region where you're mayor of all the cities in it, so requiring online is kind of dumb. Also, as far as I could tell, none of that stuff is enabled in the Beta, and you're only allowed to play for an hour before it kicks you out and makes you start a new city, so it's kind of the most pointless beta in the history of betas.